What Do We Do About Twitter?
The Twitter chaos just keeps getting more, well, chaotic.
To recap just a small bit of what's been going on since Elon Musk's takeover:
>50% of employees were fired or resigned
Misinformation and fake parody accounts proliferated after the changes to the verification system
Large advertisers started pausing or ending Twitter ads on an epic scale
Security features like two-step verification stopped working
And as of today, an ultimatum was issued and an exodus of Twitter employees has begun.
Is this it? Is Twitter over? It's tough to say, but there are serious questions about Twitter's ability to keep operating after hundreds of employees decided to quit today, including many critical engineers and moderation staffers.
If you're asking yourself whether it's worth it to stay on Twitter, it's time to prepare for the worst while monitoring what's happening. First, try to download your data (although this has been glitchy in the past week) by going to Settings and Your Account, and clicking Download an Archive of Your Data. Go through the steps to request a .zip file with your information.
Next, diversify your audience and encourage them to follow you on other platforms, and ideally your email list. Pin a Tweet to the top of your profile page with where your audience can find you, and if there are any individuals or organizations that contact you only through Twitter, proactively reach out to them. This very much includes journalists! Hopefully you've been doing this anyway, and your audience isn't only found on one platform, but there's no time like the present to get started.
However, don't delete your account; your username might be made available for someone else to claim it. Even if you do decide to leave Twitter, you can delete your posts and pin one post to your profile that explains that you're no longer using this account.
Finally, if Twitter is a major part of your digital strategy now and in the future, it might be time to reassess. Sit down with your team and talk about what your alternatives to Twitter might be, and where you can put the time and resources you would have spent on Twitter. As we say often, you never know what will happen with these kinds of platforms, so always be ready to be flexible!
